Archive for December 2008

The 2009 Security Mega Trends Survey was conducted by Ponemon Institute and sponsored by Lumension to better understand if certain publicized IT risks to personal and confidential data are, or should be, more or less of a concern for companies. We asked 577 IT security practitioners to consider how 10 Security Mega Trends affect companies today and to predict their impact during the next 12 to 24 months. The opinions of these experts, we believe, will be helpful to companies that are struggling to understand how they should allocate resources to the protection of data during these difficult economic times.

We selected the following mega trends for this study based on input from a panel of experts in IT security. They are: cloud computing, virtualization, mobility and mobile devices, cyber crime, outsourcing to third parties, data breaches and the risk of identity theft, peer-to-peer file sharing and Web 2.0.
The study examined the risks posed by mega trends that exist today and how the risk will change over the next 12 to 24 months. According to an overwhelming 77 percent of individuals in IT security responding to our survey, cyber crime will become a high or very high risk over the next 12 to 24 months.

The selection of cyber crime as the mega trend most likely to be a high or very high risk in the next 12 to 24 months can be partly based on the fact that 92 percent of respondents in our study reported that their companies have had a cyber attack. The biggest security risk associated with cyber crime is that such an attack will cause a business interruption followed by the theft of customer and employee data.

Other mega trends becoming more risky are cloud computing, malware, web 2.0 and mobile devices. In the case of cloud computing, it is the inability to assess or verify the security of data centers in the cloud and protect sensitive and confidential information. IT security practitioners see the risk of malware and Web 2.0 as resulting in the loss of sensitive or confidential business information including trade secrets.

It is interesting to note that in our study IT security respondents perceive the risk of a mobile workforce as decreasing but mobile devices remaining a high or very high risk for many companies. According to respondents, the most risky mobile device is the laptop computer and the number one concern is the inability to properly identify and authenticate remote users.

NEW YORK — A Long Island teenager has earned all 121 merit badges offered by the Boy Scouts of America. It’s an accomplishment the local arm of the organization calls “an almost unheard-of feat.”

Oceanside resident Shawn Goldsmith earned his final badge — for bugling — in time for his 18th birthday in November. He far surpassed the 21 badges required to achieve the elite rank of Eagle Scout.

He says he took about five years to earn his first 62 badges and then nearly doubled that number in a matter of months. He did it with the encouragement of his grandmother, who died shortly before he reached his goal.

The Binghamton University freshman was awarded his final badges on Dec. 19. He says he hopes to become a businessman and politician.

So can everyone that comes on into thetruthtracker, tell me how much YOUR RAISE WAS? Wait you’re telling me you didn’t get a raise? Oh well it’s okay neither did I, but congress seems to believe they deserve one. HAHAHA (Sorry I hope you didn’t cry after laughing so hard)

Yes folks you read that correctly, congress has it set up that they get an AUTOMATIC payraise every year, and this year they don’t appear to be in a hurry to change that. This raise does not go up for a vote, it is automatically added to their pay. Would you like to know the total of the raise they are expecting to receive Jan. 1st 2009?

But much to my surprise there is a DEMOCRATIC Congressman from Utah who is against the pay hike and is ready to fight for a VOTE. Now to all of us taxpayers a vote on such an issue would seem like the obvious thing to do, but the majority of our congressional officials have tried to slide it undetected under our noses.

I’d like to thank Rep. Jim Matheson for trying to take a stand and have congress vote on the issue of a pay raise that HAS NOT BE EARNED.

Despite the country’s economic meltdown, Congress is about to receive an automatic $4,700 pay raise on Thursday — a 2.8 percent increase over the current $169,300 salary for most members.

Rep. Jim Matheson says that is unconscionable, and he’s vowing to renew his annual fight to stop such automatic raises. He says the bad economy might just help him win this year, and a government watchdog group is joining his battle to say the raise is a bad idea in such times.

“In a situation where there aren’t many people in this country who are seeing their salaries go up, and in fact a lot of people are losing their jobs, the notion that Congress should be having an automatic pay raise without even a vote just doesn’t pass the smell test,” Matheson said earlier this month.

Agreeing is Tom Schantz, president of the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste — which also issued a call for Congress to stop its automatic pay raise.

“While thousands of Americans are facing layoffs and downsizing, Congress should be mortified to accept a raise,” Schantz said.

Worse, Schantz said Congress hasn’t earned a raise because it allowed the deficit to balloon while Congress was “plagued with corruptions allegations.” So, Schantz said, “If congressional leaders believe that the taxpayers should give pay raises to this rogues’ gallery of ineptitude and venality, they ought to step away from the spiked eggnog.”

OREGON CITY, Ore. — The Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office is using a popular video-sharing Web site in hopes of catching criminals.

The sheriff’s office has started its own YouTube page, where deputies are posting videos on open cases, as well as public service announcements.

“It’s a Web site that many people already are familiar with,” said Detective Jim Strovink, sheriff’s spokesman. “We hope to use the site to present information that will be useful to the public and open a two-way dialog with our deputies.”

The Web page opened for business earlier this month. Deputies have posted videos on the sheriff’s department’s Air Patrol and Domestic Violence Unit, along with videos on the county jail and boating safety. A video by Sheriff Craig Roberts announces that the sheriff’s office is hiring.

The first video deputies posted on a criminal case is a 4-minute piece on Leonard Weston Ramey Jr., who is on the FBI’s Most-Wanted List for white-collar crimes. Ramey faces felony charges of securities fraud, money-laundering, racketeering and aggravated theft for allegedly scamming would-be investors in Clackamas County out of $600,000. Authorities believe he also pulled similar scams in Tacoma and California.

Strovink said Ramey is accused of running elaborate Ponzi schemes, using money from new investors to pay off older investors. He said Ramey fabricated financial reports to convince investors to give him more money, then left town.

He was last seen in the San Francisco Bay area in 2006.

“This is one of those cases that people may forget unless we bring it to their attention,” Strovink said. “We’d like nothing better than to get a good tip from our YouTube page.”

WILKES-BARRE, Pa. — An intruder slept undetected for days in a family’s attic, stealing food and clothing when they were away and keeping warm by wrapping himself with blankets and insulation, police said.

Stanley Carter, 21, of Trumann, Ark., surrendered Friday after he heard a police dog inside the home in Plains Township.

“When he came down from the attic, he was wearing my daughter’s pants and my sweat shirt and sneakers,” the homeowner, Stacy Ferrance, said. “From what I gather, he was helping himself to my home, eating my food and stealing my clothes.”

Police said Carter had been staying with Ferrance’s duplex neighbors, who were friends of his. But when they told him to leave, he apparently accessed the duplex’s shared attic through a trap door in a bedroom ceiling. The neighbors said he disappeared Dec. 19, and they filed a missing person report a few days before Christmas.

Ferrance said she sometimes heard noises but dismissed them, thinking they were caused by her three children. When household items started disappearing, she said, the family suspected someone had duplicate keys to the house.

Then on Christmas, Ferrance filed a police report after cash, a laptop computer and an iPod disappeared. The next day, she discovered footprints in her bedroom closet – where the attic door is – and called police again.

Carter, who surrendered after police brought in a dog, kept a detailed list of everything he took, said Plains Township police Officer Michael Smith.

“When we were going through the inventory of what he did take, we found a note labeled ‘Stanley’s Christmas List’ of all the items he had removed from the residence and donated to himself,” Smith said.

Carter was charged with several counts of burglary, theft, receiving stolen property and criminal trespass. He remained jailed Sunday at the Luzerne County Correctional Facility and it was not immediately clear if he had a lawyer. A preliminary hearing is scheduled on Jan. 5.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Israel widened its deadliest-ever air offensive against Gaza’s Hamas rulers, targeting a house next to the Hamas premier’s home early Monday after pounding smuggling tunnels and a central prison, sending more tanks and artillery toward the Gaza border and calling up thousands of reserve soldiers for a possible ground invasion.

Israeli leaders said they would press ahead with the Gaza campaign, despite enraged protests across the Arab world and Syria’s decision to break off indirect peace talks with the Jewish state. Israel’s foreign minister said the goal was to halt Gaza rocket fire on Israel for good, but not to reoccupy the territory.

Early Monday, Israeli aircraft bombed the Islamic University and government compound in Gaza City, centers of Hamas power. Witnesses saw fire and smoke at the university, counting six separate airstrikes there just after midnight.

Other targets were a guest palace used by the Hamas government and the house next to Gaza Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh’s home in a refugee camp next to Gaza City. He was not home, as Hamas leaders have gone into hiding.

With the two-day death toll climbing above 290 Sunday, crowds of Gazans breached the border wall with Egypt, in an apparent attempt to escape the chaos. Egyptian forces, some firing in the air, tried to push them back into Gaza and an official said one border guard was killed.

WASHINGTON — Sen. Harry Reid will command the biggest party majority of any Senate leader in a quarter century when the new Congress convenes in January. But the Nevada Democrat is already worried about his own re-election fight in 2010.

Sen. Reid, perhaps the most-vulnerable Democrat who will face re-election in a midterm race that is likely to favor his party once again, began interviewing campaign managers last week. The Senate majority leader also recently stepped up fund-raising.

Starting early could help Sen. Reid avoid the fate of his predecessor, Tom Daschle, who was Democratic leader for a decade before losing his re-election bid in South Dakota in 2004. The current Republican leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, narrowly won re-election in Kentucky this year.

Sen. Reid “saw what happened to Tom Daschle and Mitch McConnell,” said Republican Sen. John Ensign, Nevada’s the other senator. “He saw the consequences of being the majority leader or the leader of one of the parties.”

Jon Summers, a Reid spokesman, said Sen. Reid knows he will be a Republican target in 2010 and has been preparing for his re-election campaign for some time. He added that Sen. Reid’s leadership position in the Senate is an asset, not a liability. “Being the majority leader means he can do things no one else can.”

Democrats have picked up a combined 13 seats in the past two election cycles. In 2010, more Republicans than Democrats are up for re-election, and Democratic incumbents appear to be well-positioned overall.

Sen. Reid, however, faces a potentially tough fight. A recent Research 2000 poll of likely voters put his approval rating at 38% and his disapproval rating at 54%, a possible reflection of voters’ displeasure with gridlock and partisanship in Washington. And while Nevada broke for President-elect Barack Obama by 12 percentage points in November, the state voted for President George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004.

As Senate majority leader, Sen. Reid is expected to play a critical role in shepherding Democratic priorities through the Senate, with a full docket of legislation up for consideration in the first year of the Obama administration.

Sen. Reid traveled to the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico late last month to meet with campaign contributors. A spokesman for Sen. Reid said he expects to have $3 million in his campaign account at the end of the year, up from about $2.75 million on Oct. 1. Sen. Reid spent $7 million in his 2004 race.

Two Democratic Senate colleagues, South Dakota’s Tim Johnson and Oregon’s Jeff Merkley, have sent emails to their supporters seeking contributions to Sen. Reid’s campaign.

“Republicans are going after Harry Reid’s Senate seat in 2010, and we can’t afford to lose a great Democratic leader,” Senator-elect Merkley wrote in his email.

Who might square off against Sen. Reid is unclear. Nevada’s Republican lieutenant governor, Brian Krolicki, declared his candidacy last month but was subsequently indicted for suspect accounting practices during his time as state treasurer. He has denied the charges.

Another potential GOP candidate is former Rep. Jon Porter, who lost his House seat representing an area outside of Las Vegas in November after serving three terms. The Research 2000 survey showed Sen. Reid beating Mr. Porter 46% to 40% in a potential 2010 race, an uncomfortably narrow margin for an incumbent.

Democrats say Nevada is a former swing state that has swung to their camp. The party now has a 100,000-person registration advantage there.

In 2004, the last time Sen. Reid was up for re-election, the number of registered Republicans and Democrats was about the same.